vl FLUCTUATIONS

May 17, 2008

I;ve read responses on other sites that the doc will suggest a bDNA viral load test when the RNA's have been showing blips that might be lab assay failure. Why are you not suggesting this option to people who pose this question?

Response from Dr. Holodniy

First, blips are not due to assay failure. They are most likely due to assay variability at the lower limit of detection. Rarely, blips can be due to biologic reasons, in that the virus is having bursts of replication and so it is a real phenomenon. Other newer viral load assays/technologies have less variability at the lower end of detection than prior generation tests. So it is hard to say that bDNA technology still has an advantage.

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